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Lebanon Still Overshadowed by Oblivion As Port Blast Aftermath Enters Fourth Year

Art has played an influential role in making sense of the loss felt after the August 4 explosion. Tom Young’s “Strong Angels” and other paintings show a human dimension of the tragedy and its civilian heroes, who “join forces to lift the city’s grief,” writes Darine Houmani of Diffah Three (The New Arab). “Despite all its devastation, the August 4 explosion brought greater impetus to preserve our heritage and brought about a database of our historical buildings that hadn’t been done before,” states Mona Hallak, an architect, heritage activist, and director of the American University of Beirut’s Neighborhood Initiative, as cited in The New Arab. Several weighed in on the rebuilding efforts, including Lebanese architect Jad Tabet, who proposed “rehabilitation” rather than “reconstruction,” focusing on preserving the city’s existing social fabric and inhabitants alongside the architecture (for further reading on Jad Tabet and architectural heritage, see Al Jadid, Vol. 4, No, 25, Fall 1998; Vol. 5, No. 26, Winter 1999; and Vol. 24, No. 79, 2020). As art historian and gallery owner Andrée Sfeir-Semler says, “You need to nourish people with art and culture because that is what feeds their souls.”

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Our Current Issue

The Legacy of Western Colonialism, Arab Authoritarianism, and Islamic Extremism Taints Image of Secularism

By Elie Chalala
 
Since the fall of the Assad regime, Syrians have been discussing the kind of future government they desire. These discussions have occurred on Facebook and at conferences inside and outside Syria. The 14-year war has intensified these debates, and the identity of the new power in Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, has further influenced them. This formerly extremist Islamic group has recently moderated its positions and become more open to various political perspectives. However, the latest development has raised skepticism: the new government has adopted a temporary declaration of constitutional law as its legal foundation, asserting that Islam should be the source of legislation and the president's faith. This has intensified the heated debates surrounding the new state's stance on Islam.
Essays and Features

SHALL I RETURN?

Syrian Poet Rasha Omran Examines the Dilemma Facing Displaced Syrians
By Elie Chalala
 
“Will the Syrians return?” remains a loaded question as Syria takes its first steps on the long road to recovery after half a century under tyranny. Syrian author and poet Rasha Omran poses that very question in the title of her article, “Will the Syrians Return?” published in Arabic in Diffah 3. Her story resonates with many Syrians who left the country, but rather than focus on why many chose to leave, Omran touches on the delicate issues faced by those considering returning from displacement once conditions allow.
Essays and Features

‘About the Happiness of the Oppressed’:

As the Assad Regime’s Collapse Looms, Riham Essa Reflects on the Complex Emotions Among Syrians
By Elie Chalala
 
In a blog essay published in Al Modon newspaper, Syrian short story writer and author Riham Essa touches the surface of the complex emotions she, and perhaps other Syrians, have felt in the wake of the Assad regime’s fallout as the country contemplates its new beginning. Syria, she writes, “has never been a homeland, especially after 2011."
Essays and Features

In the Face of Syria’s Suffering, Basma al-Khatib Calls for Silence from the Bystanders and Naysayers

By Elie Chalala
 
“The least we can do at this critical historical moment is to respect the suffering of the Syrians (and the suffering of everyone who was tortured by the Syrian Baath regime, regardless of their nationality) and to remain silent for a while. To come to grips with all this suffering, pain, loss of reason, and torture, we perhaps need a long time,” writes Basma Al-Khatib, a Lebanese writer and novelist.  
Essays and Features

Algeria's Curtailing of Freedom of Expression Sparks Outcry from Critics, Intellectuals, and Politicians Following Author Boualem Sansal's Arrest

By Naomi Pham
 
The sudden arrest of award-winning Algerian-French author Boualem Sansal and the ensuing silence regarding his release have produced a global outcry, bringing literary, cultural, and political circles to the writer’s defense. Sansal becomes the second author to agitate Algeria’s political and literary scene in recent months, next to fellow Algerian-French writer Kamel Daoud, whose recent legal tangle over his Prix Goncourt-winning novel “Houris” remains ongoing. Both cases raise apprehensions among critics and writers over Algeria’s course toward further restrictions on freedoms, especially concerning criticisms of the country’s history amid current talks about Morocco’s autonomy proposal for Western Sahara.
 
Essays and Features

Habermas vs. the Sheikh Zayed Book Award: An Intellectual or Soft Power Conflict!

By 
Michael Teague

Jürgen Habermas's decision to reject the Sheikh Zayed Book Award's "Cultural Personality of the Year" prize set off a heated debate in the Arab press. The most famous remaining representative of the second generation of the Frankfurt school, despite his considerable bibliography, Habermas was not well-known at the popular level in the Arab world. After his initial acceptance and then rejection of the Sheikh Zayed award, however, intellectuals in the employ of the United Arab Emirates criticized the German philosopher vociferously. 

Can a Nation Plagued by Mass Corruption, Decaying Institutions, and Rabid Sectarianism Deliver Justice For those Lost and Victimized by the August Explosion?

By 
Elie Chalala

One cannot miss the irony of the Lebanese officials allegedly responsible for what is possibly the third or fourth largest non-nuclear explosion in the world hiding behind “immunity” from a crime that claimed over 207 people and injured 6,000, while devastating large parts of the Lebanese capital. The Beirut Port explosion in August 2020 measured about one-twentieth the size of Hiroshima’s atomic bomb, according to the BBC. As its one-year anniversary approaches, many Lebanese are still struggling to hold accountable those responsible for the blast.

Important, Sometimes Controversial Iraqi Poet Saadi Youssef (1934 - 2021) Requests a ‘Funeral Without Mourners’

By 
Elie Chalala
 
The legendary and controversial Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef died at 87 in his Harefield home outside of London on June 12 from lung cancer. The poet, whose multitude of works encompassed poetry, prose, literary criticism, translation, and memoir, leaves decades’ worth of work penned in exile and translated into several languages, among them English, French, German, and Italian.

Controversy Over Mohammad Shukri’s Literary Legacy Outlives the Author

By 
Al Jadid Staff
Many students and scholars of Arabic literature would recall the debates on the books of Mohammad Shukri (1935-2003) late last century and a part of the early 21st century. The debates centered primarily on Shukri’s picaresque approach, which included harsh depictions of repression, marginalization, deprivation, morality, breaching taboos and censorship, and of course, the banning of his books in most Arab countries. We can categorize many of his books as autobiographical, and the opposition was not to this type of literature but to the language and details he used. His spontaneity violated all technical and artistic norms in both Moroccan and Arab literature, especially in “The Bare Bread,” “Age of Mistakes,” and “Faces,” his autobiographical trilogy.
 

The Judiciary, Latest Indicator of Lebanon’s Impending Collapse:

A Judge Runs Amok
By 
Elie Chalala
The collapse of the Lebanese state grows imminent as news of different sectors unraveling emerges every day. The latest crisis reached the judiciary, which — though already known for its politicization and sectarianism — currently deals with a judge whose erratic, politicized personality violates all the norms of judicial behaviors and traditions. This controversial judge is Mount Lebanon state prosecutor, Ghada Aoun.
 

In a Statistical Vacuum, Speculating on the Arab-American Vote, 2016 vs. 2020

By 
Elie Chalala
 
While much of the country — and even the world — focused on the last U.S. election and remained engrossed even after its results and consequences, the picture of this historic event in the Arab world was unlike anything that was happening here. Regrettably, the distorted analysis and coverage by Arab media influenced to some extent the attitudes and electoral choices of many Arab immigrants in the U.S.

Beirut’s People Still Waiting: The Government That Left a Bomb on Their Doorstep Now Leaves Them Out in the Cold

By 
Al Jadid Staff
 
The never-ending reports from Lebanon on its social and economic crises are perplexing. Despite the gravity of the situation, officials sitting at the top refuse to relinquish or even reform the system. Recent news reports reveal a collapsing banking sector, a threatened educational system, and an impoverished and broken health system, all while the country watches a judiciary circus played daily on TV and social media, demolishing whatever legitimacy the courts still hold.

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